"Quiero verme en el espejo"
(I want to see myself in the mirror)
with Lorent Saleh
2019
Paris, France
Introductory audio of the curator (who prefer to be called as C.)
This is the story of Lorent Saleh, human rights activist persecuted by the dictatorship of Venezuela. The story is told by himself through an action registered in only one take.
This is a teaser of the video. To watch the full work, please request the link and its password by clicking the next button.
This short emerges from my need to construct a memory from a country that is vanishing. I create it through Lorent Saleh, a Venezuelan activist who was imprisoned by the Venezuelan government for four years and one month.
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Captivated by his energy and by his story, I asked him to return to that moment of his life for 15 minutes. Something that seemed impossible. Everything was shot in one take, without a script or retakes.
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When I conceived this piece, I thought it would contribute to Lorent unloading some of the emotional weight that signified having been tortured and imprisoned for his beliefs. By sharing and making it public, you become keepers of the emotional burden it contains. This is not an apology to pity, on the contrary, through this short the subject once a victim elevates himself over all of us.
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With the static scenes and the sound produced by the camera's auto-focus, a tension is generated, a battle between the destruction of a prisoner of conscience's identity; his Self versus the Other, his watchmen or spectators. In this sense, an apparent monologue becomes a dialogue. There are two extra sounds added: one is the lift's sound which submerges you into the underground from where Lorent speaks to us and the sound of the underground or Metro, which depicts the only sound he heard allowing him to have a trail of the perception of time.
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Even though Lorent was physically tortured, I focused on the psychological torture because it was the one that sought to transform the individual into someone without ideals, will or self-confidence. Psychological torture tries to convert the tortured into a subdued individual and this is what I intended to expose.
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The macro photos of his skin serve as a sort of cartography, opening and closing the film. A profound immersion into the body of the transgressed or abused; however, renewed and with gestures that expose his force and momentum. I wanted to show his naked body as the epicentre of his own identity and of the action, and this is how his memory surged as a poetic word.
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With this film, I want to remind him of who he continues to be. And remind you of our capabilities as human beings to do both good or bad. But, what's good? What's bad? This short leaves many questions open.
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"I want to see myself in the mirror": Lorent's plead that resumes what I want to communicate; the imperative to not lose ourselves, to not forget.
